A Wolf

(Translated from the Spanish of Jorge Luis Borges)

Furtive and grey in the final gloaming
he treads, leaving his tracks along the bank

of this nameless river, which has sated

the thirst in his throat and whose waters

reflect no stars. Tonight,

the wolf is a solitary shadow,

seeking his mate and feeling the cold.

He is the last wolf in England.

Odin and Thor know him. From his towering

stone house, a king has decided

to be rid of all the wolves. The solid steel

of your death has already been forged.

Saxon wolf, you have bred in vain.

It is not enough to be cruel. You are the last.

A thousand years will pass and, in America,

an old man will dream about you. It is no

use to you, this distant dreaming.

Today those men, following the trail you left

as you crossed the forest, are closing in on you,

furtive and grey in the final gloaming.

Un lobo

Furtivo y gris en la penumbra última,
va dejando sus rastros en la margen
de este río sin nombre que ha saciado
la sed de su garganta y cuyas aguas
no repiten estrellas. Esta noche,
el lobo es una sombra que está sola
y que busca a la hembra y siente frío.
Es el último lobo de Inglaterra.
Odín y Thor lo saben. En su alta
casa de piedra un rey ha decidido
acabar con los lobos. Ya forjado
ha sido el fuerte hierro de tu muerte.
Lobo sajón, has engendrado en vano.
No basta ser cruel. Eres el último.
Mil años pasarán y un hombre viejo
te soñará en América. De nada
puede servirte ese futuro sueño.
Hoy te cercan los hombres que siguieron
por la selva los rastros que dejaste,
furtivo y gris en la penumbra última.

Poem by Jorge Luis Borges

Translation by Benjamin Palmer

The Eye of the Whale

(Translated from the Spanish of Homero Aridjis)

And God created the great whales.

(Genesis 1:21) 

And there in San Ignacio Lagoon,

God created the great whales
and every creature that moves
in the shadowed thighs of waters.

And He created dolphin and sea lion,
blue heron and green turtle,
white pelican, golden eagle,
and the double-crested cormorant.

And God said unto the whales:
‘Be fruitful and multiply
through acts of love
revealed on the surface,

by no more than a bubble,
or a tilted fin,

as the cow is caught below
on the long, prehensile penis;

for there’s no greater glory for grey
than when it’s silvered by light.
Your fathomless breath
is an exhalation.’

And God saw that it was good,
that the whales would love
and play with their calves
in the magical lagoon.

And God said:
‘Seven whales together
make a procession.
One hundred make a sunrise.’

And the whales arose
to catch a glimpse of God between

the dancing furrows of water.
And God was seen through the eye of a whale.

And the whales swelled
the seas of the earth.
And that was the evening and morning
of the fifth day.

El ojo de la ballena

Y Dios creó las grandes ballenas.

(Génesis, I, 2I)

A Betty

Y Dios creó las grandes ballenas
allá en Laguna San Ignacio,
y cada criatura que se mueve
en los muslos sombreados del agua.
    
Y creó al delfín y al lobo marino,
a la garza azul y a la tortuga verde,
al pelícano blanco, al águila real
y al cormorán de doble cresta.
    
Y Dios dijo a las ballenas:
‘Fructificad y multiplicaos
en actos de amor que sean
visibles desde la superficie
    
sólo por una burbuja,
por una aleta ladeada,
asida la hembra debajo
por el largo pene prensil;
    
que no hay mayor esplendor del gris
que cuando la luz lo platea.
Su respiración profunda
es una exhalación.’
    
Y Dios vio que era bueno
que las ballenas se amaran
y jugaran con sus crías
en la laguna mágica.
    
Y Dios dijo:
‘Siete ballenas juntas
hacen una procesión.
Cien hacen un amanecer.’
    
Y las ballenas salieron
a atisbar a Dios entre
las estrías danzantes de las aguas.
Y Dios fue visto por el ojo de una ballena.
    
Y las ballenas llenaron
los mares de la tierra.
Y fue la tarde y la mañana
del quinto día.

Poem by Homero Aridjis

Translation by Benjamin Palmer

Photographs by Bryant Austin

Projects for Poems 

1. An ‘A’ painted on a billiard ball. 

2. Recite poetry with a pair of glasses in your mouth. 

3. With a postage stamp stuck to your lips put your head in a sack and count to a hundred.

4. Perform Chinese shadow puppetry with a letter painted on each hand.

5. Put on a yellow bracelet and smoke a cigarette; put on a red bracelet and drink a glass of water.

6. Draw an open umbrella on a wall and title it Target; draw an arrow stuck in a target and title it Umbrella.

7. Write a poem using toothpicks to form the letters.

8. Tear a page out of a book of poems, and then burn it by focussing sunlight through a magnifying glass.

9. Start projecting a film in daylight, timing it so that as the film progresses, dusk descends and night comes on.

10. Leaning from a balcony, cut out the words of a sonnet, one by one.

11. Begin reading a long poem out loud, knowing that your colleague in the next room is going to cut off the power at any moment.

12. Fire a rocket, draw an eye on your belly-button and demolish a cage.

Projectes de poemes 

1. Una A pintada damunt una bola de billar. 

2. Recitar poemes amb unes ulleres dins la boca. 

3. Amb un segell enganxat als llavis ficar el cap en un sac i comptar fins a cent. 

4. Fer ombres xineses amb una lletra pintada a cada mà. 

5. Posar-se un braçal groc i fumar un cigarret; posar-se un braçal vermell i beure un got d'aigua. 

6. Dibuixar en una paret un paraigua obert i titular-lo Rodella; dibuixar una fletxa clavada en una rodella i titular-la Parauigua. 

7. Escriure un poema servint-se d'escuraqueixals per a formar les lletres. 

8. Arrencar un full d'un llibre de poemes i cremar-lo concentrant-li al damunt els raigs del sol amb una lupa. 

9. Començar la projecció d'una pel•lícula amb claror de dia de manera que durant la projecció transcorri el capvespre i es faci nit fosca. 

10. Abocats al balcó retallar les lletres d'un sonet una per una.

11. Iniciar en veu alta la lectura d'un poema llarg tot sabent que un company vostre, des d'una altra habitació, tallarà el corrent elèctric en qualsevol moment. 

12. Disparar un coet, dibuixar-se un ull al melic i destruir una gàbia. 

Poem and art by Joan Brossa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Brossa

Translation by Benjamin Palmer

Portrait of Joan Brossa by Antoni Tàpies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoni_Tàpies

Camecuaro

It’s our third day in Mexico and we haven’t stopped for longer than it takes to polish off a plate of tacos. I’m excited to be here, in my wife’s country, visiting her family. But I’m out of sorts, tired after dozens of hours travelling by plane and bus and car. I state my case for the putting up of feet – it feels like the earth is shifting beneath them. I need to catch up with myself. And yet here I am, being coaxed into another car ride.

It’s just a short trip from Zamora to Camecuaro, I’m told. Nothing like the eight-hour drive we made from Mexico City the day before, or the twelve-hour flight from Barcelona the day before that. And I am assured by both Judith and my mother-in-law, Irma, that this place could be just what I need.

I’m not convinced, I think what I need is a good lie down. But in my weakened state I’m defenceless against the combined might of the mother and daughter tag-team. I soon yield.

I find Camecuaro to be a small lake of clear waters, encircled by outlandishly shaped trees. Judith tells me these are ahuehuetes, and that their name means ‘old man of the water’ in the indigenous Náhuatl language. And truly, there’s something ancient, even primitive, about them. Their trunks are stout and covered in thick, wrinkled bark, reminiscent of elephant hide. The roots wind around the foot of each tree in a labyrinthine mass, like a nest of serpents fossilized mid-writhe.

Judith and Irma were right. This is a special place. We walk to the lake’s edge, where the roots snake down into the water. A Muscovy duck regards our approach.

Nestled on tangled roots

of old friend ahuehuete  –

crimson-wattled bird.

‘Let’s get in a boat!’ says Judith. Small, wooden and brightly painted – chili-red, turquoise, canary-yellow – they seem to have come out of a children’s picture book. They are barely bobbing in the lake’s docile waters. Each has a lady’s name written on the side: Lupita, Irene, Silvia, Sandra... We plump for Gloria.

Ensconced in our cosy vessel we begin rowing around the lake. It’s a weekday afternoon so we have the place to ourselves. The sun is an electric blanket, the breeze a gentle song, and sleepiness steals over us.

Oars left idle;

limbs stretching, eyelids kiss,

drifting into stillness.

After a while we feel hungry, so we row back to shore and make our way to a café overlooking the lake. We order a plate of fruta con chile: pieces of orange, cucumber, potato and jicama, covered in lime juice and ground chile piquin. This is all washed down with a bottle of Modelo Especial, chilled and served with fresh lemon juice and sea salt laced around the rim.

The ingredients are few and the dishes simply prepared, yet a cavalcade of flavours make merry on my tongue:  sweet, spicy, fiery, briny, bitter, zesty… It’s all too much!

An impromptu snack;

I am grateful for this taste –

a country’s essence.

After we return to the house I read more about ahuehuetes, which have now taken root in my brain. I learn that they have their origin in the Mesozoic period, when giant reptiles stalked or slithered across the land, and that some specimens grow to be thousands of years old. I discover that they were sacred to the indigenous peoples of Mexico – used by the Aztecs as a symbol of government – and that another name for them is the Moctezuma cypress.

And I read of the legend that conquistador, Hernán Cortés, wept beside an ahuehuete after the Spanish were routed by the Aztecs on La Noche Triste.

Beneath your branches

Cortés grieved defeat.

Our time with you was sweeter.

My roots have not had millennia to dig into this land and drink from its water, yet some ahuehuete strength and calm has passed to me today. For the first time since arriving in Mexico I feel the earth firm and friendly beneath my feet.

Primeval cypress!

Proud empires peak and plummet,

and still you stand.

For Billie Holiday

Your voice,

like smoked honey,
like creaking mahogany,

like roasted chestnuts in late November,

or a rainy Sunday afternoon

in a faded part of town.

Your voice,

an owl's plaintive cry

drifting through an opened window,

weaving in with the purr of the cat on the lap

and the crackling of the fire.

Your voice,

a hung-over clarinet,

throaty and full of regret

after a night of heady carousal.

I hear you now

as I wash these dishes,

alone on this grey morning,

after my own sweet share

of boozing and tomfoolery.

I hear you,

ghostly from the radio,

telling me not to be afraid,

not even of loneliness,

because that’s a gift too –

reminding us we're alive

and one day we won't be.

I hear you telling me,

despite it all, Lady Day,

that everything

will be okay.

We know that’s not true

but it’s important to say it;

even more so to sing it.

And no one sang it, Lady Day –

still no one sings it – 
like you.

Herring Gull

The bird

that still thinks

it’s a velociraptor.

*

Gull choreography:

Stalk, strut,

strike a pose;

thrust out neck,

snap wide zealous beak

– tongue rearing like an irate snake –

scream victory at the world.

*

With its

jerky motions,

vitric eyes and

swazzle screech;

its red-stained

hook of a nose –

avian cousin

to Mr Punch.

*

Hobbies include:

scavenging,

squabbling,

jeering,

thievery.

 *

City-slicking atavist –

how at home you are

in this domain

of men!